Pauken on Perry: Sound bites, not sound policy

Former state GOP chairman Tom Pauken, who says he’s running for governor regardless of which giant he’ll be taking on, spoke more bluntly Friday about a conflict with Gov. Rick Perry over stimulus funds than he did as Perry’s appointed Texas Workforce Commission chairman.

The conflict centered on Perry’s refusal to take $555 million in stimulus funds for unemployment, although Texas took a lot of other stimulus money to help balance its budget under Perry.

The jobless money came with requirements to expand benefits that Perry opposed. Pauken said at the time that he wanted to find a way to take the money without the strings, although he downplayed the conflict a bit then.

Pauken came by to chat on a trip to Austin in conjunction with his campaign, and I asked him about the matter.

Pauken said Perry’s office “wanted me to essentially repudiate my own position,” and that he refused, having made up his mind when he left a stint as a military intelligence officer in Vietnam in 1969 that he would salute only the folks he felt like saluting.

He said the difference in opinion was one of the things that led him to believe the current administration practices “government by sound bite, not sound policies.”

Perry showcased his decision as one of the ways he has stood up against Washington meddling as he faced a GOP primary challenge from then U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, whom he handily defeated.

With his idea, Pauken said, the state either could have received the money without strings or had a beauty of a 10th Amendment lawsuit against the Obama Administration.

“That’s when I came to the conclusion that these folks weren’t serious about advancing our conservative principles in an effective way,” said Pauken, who continued to serve as Workforce Commission chairman until 2012.

Perry has defended his tenure as a rousing success for Texas.

Pauken earlier announced for governor even though Perry hasn’t said whether he’ll run for re-election and Attorney General Greg Abbott could make the race.